Monthly Archives: September 2018

Everything I learned, revealed divine consciousness is God dwelling within and outside of us. The good and the bad, the hot and the cold, all of it is God. By putting things in that context, I didn’t have to know and understand everything. I was working on living with more trust and appreciation of the process by allowing moments to unfold.

I heard a story on the news which helped me stay grateful for all that I had and kept life in the proper perspective.

A young mother had just left church on Easter Sunday, in the Bronx with her family and had her young baby boy less than two years old, strapped in his car seat.

A stray bullet traveled through the back door, killing her son.

Situations like this used to be my justification for why there can’t be a God. On what level did the Universal laws get activated to bring that experience about? I believe God is in control. But hearing stories like that at times – wasn’t convincing.

Nia, my youngest child, was close to that same age when the story broke. I couldn’t imagine the suffering that the family was experiencing. I wanted that child’s life to not be a random act of violence. I used that incident to realize how blessed I am to be able to see my daughters every week, kissing and holding them in my arms, even if it’s only for an hour in the crowded visiting room.

I’m sure that the child’s mother would change situations with me, no hesitation involved, happy to be facing 45 years, as long as her baby boy was alive. I decided then on that I would never complain about being in prison. I’ve experienced how important the right attitude was dealing with difficult situations that were ultimately based on your perception and faith.

“If only someone would have explained to me then, what I’ve now come to learn,” I thought, looking out on the unit, seeing impressions of myself at earlier stages in life when I had a gangster mentality, convinced I knew it all.

Like this:

Not only am I indicted for a drug conspiracy, but I was under investigation for extortion, a string of burglaries and armed robberies connected to a crooked Suffolk County cop, a group of shady lawyers and one of the Mafia’s five organized crime families.

When Erick Sermon went head first out a fourth-floor window, I was the first person called. My crew had a reputation to dish out street justice. There was no aspect of this gangster lifestyle I didn’t participate in.

That first year of incarceration, was one dramatic court hearing after another. Each taking a toll on my mother. When she learned that my friends were cooperating with the government against me, she took matters into her own hands.

Mom walked quietly but carried a big stick.

My mother had a reputation of her own in the streets.

The district attorney learned that Mamma Wright was in Gestapo mode and brought it to the judge’s attention at the end of my hearing.

“Your honor, there’s one last issue I would like to address, concerning the defendant’s mother,” the prosecutor said pointing to my mother in the courtroom.

John, turned around with raised eyebrows, looking at my mom who smiled, shrugged her shoulders, listening to what was said.

“What’s your concern?” the Judge asked.

“We’ve received information that Mrs. Wright has confronted a number of potential witnesses and we would ask the Court to advise her to stop. She’s attempting to obstruct justice.”

My mother kept smiling.

Then the Judge addressed her directly, “Mrs. Wright, although the Court does understand a mother’s love for her son, please cease contact with witnesses involved in this case. Interfering with a federal investigation is a serious crime. Please allow your sons’ lawyer, who I’m sure has a licensed investigator, address any issues that have any significance to this case.”

“O.k.,” my mother said, nodding her head, still smiling at me as I was lead out of the courtroom.

“I experienced the difference living in the black world and the white one. I was sheltered in the safe white world in the suburbs of Long Island, living on a dead end block with close-knit neighbors. Prejudice incidents still occurred with kids once in a while. Being called a nigger was the one word I knew justified any physical beat down I dished out in childhood fights. But I had a good healthy adventurous upbringing, riding BMX bikes, playing hide and seek, joining the boy scouts and playing soccer.

As I grew into my adolescent years, my white friends were into groups like AC/DC, Metallica, and Guns and Roses. I was into Africa Bambada, Sugar Hill gang and break dancing.

I was always encouraged to be whatever I wanted to be in life.

Get your education and the sky’s the limit.

But it wasn’t something that I believed. It sounded good when my mother would tell me but growing into a young black teenager, I held different views of life with a sense that my opportunities would be limited.

During my confused, angry, teenage years, I began getting into fights so I started selling weed, I had zero respect for authority and ended up attending five different high schools. Somehow I graduated from Central Islip High School on time in 1991.

At 18 years old, I had a newborn son named Andrew, who I was denying from my ex-girlfriend. I obtained numerous arrest and from what the principal said at the graduation ceremony, this was just the beginning of my journey in life.

I continued acting out on a path of self-destructive behaviors, thinking fighting and shootouts at clubs were cool, just to be known. When I began selling serious drugs, the way money came cemented the idea in my mind of what I wanted to do.

I heard that lifestyle would only land you in prison or the graveyard.

“It wouldn’t happen to me,” I thought.

But even when it did, after doing my time, six months in county jail, then four years in Virginia state prison, I felt so caught up in the life that I thought being a gangster was what God put me in this world to be. I was following my destiny, right off a cliff.

By 32, I was well known in the criminal underworld, connected to street gangs, drug cartels, and major mafia families. I had a house with no mortgage. My new wife was a beautiful young pregnant Columbian knock out. I was managing Erick Sermon, the legendary rap artist, and music producer, traveling the globe and making plenty of money. From the outside looking in, I was on top of the world. But my inner voice would ask “Where am I heading? When is all of this going to come crumbling down?”

Change is a powerful word. It can inflict a strong sense of fear, in those that need it the most.

When our lives have hit rock bottom, the suggestion to change is the one thing that can appear to make things even worse. As long as we live with self-destructive thought patterns and belief systems, difficult results will continue to show up in our life experiences.

I found myself asking life questions, answering them with the gangster thought system that clearly didn’t have the right answers to bring about change.